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The distinguishing characteristic of my Twitter stream lately has been the arrival in New York of so many of my fellow Twitterati, especially those with podcasts to their name. Why? Because it’s just about time for PodCamp NYC, which kicks off tonight with something that sounds less like a party than like a micro pitchfest, at a place called Slate (54 West 21st Street), and then continues on into Saturday, when I’ll be on an “informal roundtable” at 9am (an inhuman hour for a Saturday-morning podcast-related event, really), talking about “social media convergence and virtual worlds” with SecondCast producer and Fo3 John Swords, Joseph Jaffe, Greg Verdino, and Adam Broitman. To better navigate the event, which is open to all and features more than 100 different talks in 12 different rooms at The New Yorker hotel (481 Eighth Avenue at 34th Street), grab a pdf or interactive calendar of the full schedule. Should be fun, as there are going to be a ton of people in town for this (500 people have already RSVP’d for the party tonight), and you can even follow along to a certain extent in Second Life.

There’s a long article on the virtual world of Second Life in this month’s issue of Southwest Airlines’ Spirit Magazine, which features a close-up avatar shot on the cover. Why bother blogging this here? Because in-flight magazines have massive readership and reach a broad cross-section of people who may or may not be interested in technology. As far as the mainstreaming of virtual worlds goes, getting the cover of an in-flight mag is a very cool thing. And the article’s not that bad either.

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Second Life architect Lordfly Digeridoo has posted a great video of the process of designing a site plan in Second Life for a real-world site in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Because of “massive procrastination,” LF says, he had only a week to do it. His video compresses that week into less than 10 minutes of high-speed SL work, and it’s pretty compelling to watch. There’s even a great sense of suspense in wondering what the finished product will be like. An excellent look at the methods of a master builder.

Microsoft will push the development of geospatial and mapping applications with “unrestricted funding” totaling $1.1 million that has been offered to 21 winners chosen from among more than 140 university teams that responded to a recent Microsoft Research request for proposals. The awards are made for one year.

What I like about this program is that it’s focused squarely on how mapping and geospatial functions can be used to improve our physical lives. According to a press release, “The university research teams aim to study and map the physical world in real time, to push the technological boundaries of local search, and to understand the potential societal impact of these kinds of geographic technologies. New solutions ultimately resulting from the research are expected to yield rich and diverse benefits, such as helping tourists find affordable restaurants with the shortest lines, or helping scientists understand changes in the ecology of biological systems under the threat of climate change.” [Emphasis added.]

Projects already in the works include layering current environmental conditions into a mirror world like Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, or allowing climatologists and other scientists to examine data over the long term to track pollution and climate changes. Other projects take in what we at 3pointD would call augmented reality, combining data from tiny real-world sensors, the Internet and “a variety of other sources” with map information and geographic imagery. There’s also a researcher who’s contemplating recreating his movements in a mirror world so that friends and family can keep up with him remotely. Now that’s my kind of mapping. (more…)

Reuters carried the news Wednesday that Linden Lab, makers of the virtual world of Second Life, had invited FBI agents to look around the Grid at the gambling activities going on there. And though the Lindens say they “know of no law enforcement agency that has opened an investigation into gambling in Second Life,” the company has decided to no longer accept from residents “any classified ads, place listings, or event listings that appear to relate to simulated casino activity.” Now, Giddyup Holdings, a company based in the British Virgin Islands and which runs Internet gambling site PalmVegas.com as well as a Second Life casino, has issued a press release — apparently signed off on by LL’s PR agency — stating that it will no longer allow access to its SL casino by U.S. residents, and that it is talking to Linden Lab about ways to automatically restrict access to U.S. residents and computers being accessed from within the U.S. There may not be an investigation going on, but it sounds like people are nervous. I’d say it’s even money as to whether we see a ruling from the government on gambling in Second Life, since current laws (as I recall) pretty clearly state that U.S. residents aren’t allowed access to gambling via the Internet (which of course is the network through which we access SL). There’s sure to be a hue and cry from a few cyberutopian SL residents out there, but my guess is that the issue’s already been decided.